


Fragments and Refuges

by FZ_DracoHart



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Pirate, F/F, Slave Trade, many genres with many ratings, some are rated M and up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-15 10:36:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12319314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FZ_DracoHart/pseuds/FZ_DracoHart
Summary: ‘Fragments and Refuges’ will be an archive of oneshots by yours truly—fragments of stories coming from bigger plot ideas, or short stories as ‘refuges’ for abandoned plots. Unless stated as abandoned, the plots written here might or might not be written as proper series.The oneshots here also serve as test runs for my ideas and to gain necessary feedback from White Rose shippers and the fandom in general. So feel free to drop feedback, suggestions and whatnots!And yes, I only can write AU, because personally canon settings restrain my freedom. Don’t like AUs? Fite me, mate. Repost from FFnet since AO3 is arguably the better platform for this.1. How do We Ride the Winds? (omegaverse 1800s Navy/Pirate AU)2. Thirty Gold Coins and Five Mares (Medieval fantasy AU, WARNING : Slave Trading)3. Silent, Watery Serenade (Normal World AU, WARNING : Implied graphic lewd scene)





	1. How Do We Ride the Winds?

**Author's Note:**

> 1800s Navy/Pirates AU in an omegaverse concept. Branded by nature as an omega, bestowed with a broke gambler father, Ruby breaks the tides and fate as a pirate with her uncle. On the other side, a captain of Atlesian frigate, the unlikely alpha Weiss Schnee has lots more to worry than pirate ambushes, a sister in the madhouse and her own corrupted family hounding her across deep waters.
> 
> Yeah, you hear it right, omegaverse with a flavor of Pirates of Carribean(?)
> 
> WARNING : Innuendos of sexual content (if you squint).

**How do We Ride the Winds?**

 

**\--------**

**\--------**

 

To capture a Navy sailor or a marine was so common, but a captain? There were only few things surpassing such achievement for pirates—and few disgraces worse for a Navy captain than getting shanghaied by sea-scoundrels.

Crescent Rose, the rogue brigantine once maimed by her command and her crews, now became her prison.

Weiss Schnee, the captain of notorious INS Myrtenaster, now being held and forced to the labor of a deckhand for a band of measly pirates.

An alpha she might be biological-wise, but her generally small stature betrayed that notion. Her raw strength would be too lacking to turn the capstan and hauled the heavy anchor (or to wrest her freedom through bunches of brawny pirates), but she’d refuse to have her pride stomped further by scrubbing dark gun deck and provision cellar infested with rum stench and maggots. Hence she was elated to be shoved into a duty of working with whatever mess on the upper deck.

On the topgallant yard she worked with the sail, with flimsy ratline as her only safety from crashing down the great heights. Good heavens, she still retained her agility in climbing high-rising masts and operating rigging from her old days as a deckhand in her own father’s merchant ship. Brigantine’s rigging was different from that of a clipper or a frigate, but she easily adapted to which pulleys and braids of rope to work on.

Weiss held a form of pride inside, knowing she was the author behind this ship’s scars of busted masts and riggings. Yet she was also frustrated with how flimsy those dolt pirates repairing their own damage and made the rigging even harder to work with.    

A low-ranked crew called her with insulting name she didn’t bother to know, telling her she was expected by Crescent Rose’s captain. Biting her inner cheek not to insult back, Weiss climbed down the rope ladder all the way down.  

Draped in maroon coat and flashy red hood, there stood Ruby Rose. The captain-like figure of Crescent Rose, famed for her speed and sickle-sword—and most important of all, an omega.

Seafaring business, let alone piracy, wasn’t something for tender and meek omegas to handle, with rough sea and hungry alpha (and hormonal beta) crews ready to ravage them whether they were in heat or not. How could an omega survived the harsh sailor’s life, and being the leader figure nonetheless, put Weiss and many to wonders.

“Captain Schnee, come with me to my quarters.“

A pair of white eyebrows furrowed. That wasn’t she expected. “What courteous of you, addressing me with that, while I’m just your hostage.”

“You’re a hostage when someone sees loss from your absence, and benefit from taking you back, Weiss Schnee.”

“Are you implying I’ve lost my worth?” Weiss hissed.

The silver-eyed pirate let that question unanswered and walked ahead to captain’s quarters. There was an allusion of freedom of choice, to follow or not to follow, but Weiss saw no benefit on opting for anything aside from following her.

A table for two had been set neatly inside. Weiss sat quietly face-to-face with Ruby, guessing what sick joke disguised as private fancy lunch.  

“Be at ease, hm? No one will harm you as long as the captain says not to.”

“Which is the true captain in charge, however? You, or Qrow Branwen?”

Weiss didn’t find the smile given by Ruby a satisfying reply, but the incoming appetizer halt any words of swords from her mouth. Her mouth watered, but she knew it wasn’t the time to allude her hunger.

Until she wolfed down the entirety of the broccoli cream soup, she hadn’t realized how starving she was.

Weiss couldn’t mistake the royal blue hue littering the corner of her eyes. Her Imperial Navy coat and crested bicorn hat was hanged neatly, obviously placed as the pirate captain’s trophy—and shown to her ire. She couldn’t see her rapier and sabre anywhere, thus diminishing her chance to fight to zero.

Ruby Rose and her scheme of bragging how helpless the Navy captain was—disarming her from her uniform, weapons and dignity, feeding her with captain’s luxurious meal in condescending pity.

“It’s not the first time we met,” chirped the pirate, right when the main course of floured fried fish and mashed potatoes was brought in. “So I actually hope we have less hostility between us.”  

“Frankly speaking, I can’t see any circumstance when we can be not hostile to each other,” the snow-haired woman retorted sharply, “barring any events that involves me rutting to your heat.”

Ruby didn’t reply but with child-like pitch perfect laughter.

Oh, it was so easy for Weiss, to shun her refined self-control and let her basic alpha need roused awake by the omega’s enticing scent. She could pounce on this sweet omega seafarer, worked her length drilling deep and defiled Ruby’s warm cove with her seed. If she strongly desired to, she could try to held Ruby hostage until the cycle of heat got the pirate captain buckled under animalistic want.

A feared pirate Ruby Rose might be, she was still an omega. Her heat would be her undoing and bring her to her knees, begging to be bred by Weiss.

Yes, that was a perfect plan—if only Qrow Branwen wasn’t on board, watching both the silver-eyed pirate and her with his sharp crimson eyes.

 

The captive white-haired Navy ate in silence, trying to halt her fantasy and Ruby’s natural scent from making her trousers felt stuffy.

The dessert that came after surprised Weiss. A small plate of ripe strawberries, cut into delectable slice arranged beautifully. Only magic and sorcery that would allow such fresh sweet perishable to be present in this mangy pirate brigantine.

She spied those small rosy lips that touched sweet strawberry slices.

“What if I say I have an honest will to return you back to your ship?” Ruby smiled, letting her words slipped as smooth as strawberries sliding through her lips.

She saw how eyes of frozen sea spearing for truth from her words and her own silver-tinted ones.

“And why haven’t you done it?”

“Pirates or Navy, we both know certain things only can be paid in ‘blood money’.”

Ruby took in deep breath before she hauled it out in a contented sigh. Breeze of icy sea coming from Weiss went so well with fresh whiff of strawberries, wrapping her tongue gently with the juiciness of her favorite fruit.

 _Sweet vanilla. Gentle aster. Soft but domineering air of northern sea’s frost and iceberg._  

Weiss’ thin alpha scent. So laughably thin compared to her father’s, Yang’s, or even to any alpha sailors of Crescent Rose’s crew.

Still, it was lovely and bewitching the omega.  

The three-course meal was finished to last morsel. Ruby still felt a pang of hunger inside, while the snow-haired Navy looked so eager to leave.

“Thank you for the meal. I’ll be going to get my jobs done.”

She wanted to stall the alpha Navy captain inside her quarters longer, if not forever. However, she did nothing to stop Weiss from leaving her quarters. The alpha captain-turned-deckhand had gone back to work, scrubbing a cannon on the weather deck.

Qrow watched from the crow’s nest. Her uncle watched, red eyes be like sentries that wouldn’t let any single movement of Weiss Schnee unnoticed. She was sure her uncle would interrogate her later about the Atlesian alpha and their private lunch.

Stench of sweat, mucks of salty humidity from the ocean overpowered Weiss’ dilute and unassuming scent. Still, her sense easily picked up the alpha’s essence and evoked a primordial omega reaction inside Ruby.

There was an urge to huddle against the beautiful alpha, dousing her presence with the fragile, sweet and icy scent--and maybe, to impale herself to the alpha’s hardened mast, boarding to a lustful ride that appeased her starving warmth inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> INS = Imperial Navy Ship. A prefix present in every warship owned by Atlas Imperial Navy.
> 
> Inspired by Kuma’s pirate au and this particular original fiction titled ‘The Devil and the Deep’ here.
> 
> Yes, shanghaied! Just like your ‘ole Spongebob pirate episode! No, no, really, shanghai is a legit verb as well as a city in China. Shanghai means to abduct or force someone to work on a ship.
> 
> I’ve only read an abridged version of Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, but somehow I write Weiss with an image of Horatio Hornblower in my head. And Mary Read for Ruby just…well, y’know female pirates in a sea of male pirates and an omega being a captain of (mostly) alpha and beta scoundrels. Oh well, I guess I think I need to read more Hornblower series.
> 
> Honestly this is the one that really excites me and I really want to write at the moment, but somehow I hesitated because well... omegaverse is weird and creeps some people out, so I guess it'll be hard to be accepted in the fandom and finding a betareader for this one will be hard too (I want this to be one of my serious, mistake-free works). Well, we'll just see what unfolds in the future.
> 
> P.S. For me, Ruby will always be a courageous, leading, rebellious and cute omega. You can’t convince me otherwise. Fite me, mate.


	2. Thirty Gold Coins and Five Mares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Silver eyes. A sign of demon's scourge, they say." Beauty that beckons misfortune, it's her silver eyes are all about. What she never expects to come is a proposal of matrimony, coming from a cold-eyed noblewoman. Maybe there's always more madness in this world than we thought. A medievalish fantasy AU
> 
> WARNING: Slave trading, nudity and implied sexual content

“Silver eyes. A sign of demon’s scourge, they say.”

The spoken silver-eyes flickered, fiercely, upon the lantern’s lighting. The golden light of the caged fire did no enough merit to cast off the darkness, but nonetheless it gave her a chance to spy who was in front of her.

A pale woman in a set of luxurious—somehow masculine—female garb of white, grey and ashen blue. Snowflake-themed art noveau embroidery snaked on her short white cape, with a silver lion’s head clasped the snowy linen around her narrow shoulders.

Definitely not a brothel’s pimp, or an upjumped merchant looking for a new bed warmer. The pompous clothing and adornment of pure silver spoke of sky high status, emphasized by the sword on her hips. A female of nobility—and maybe someone with military standing too?

A small whimper croaked out as her chin was lifted and allowed her an up-close view of her potential buyer. A visage of a matured young female, blemished with a single slash of scar, that nested a pair of cold eyes of frozen lakes. Beautiful, but laced with discomforting presence.

Who was this cold-eyed woman? Most probably a female knight or even a noble commander, but that raised more disturbing question of her visit. What did she seek here? A post-battle prize to be passed around among her knight comrades and loyal subjects?

“Surely I can pay now and bring her home immediately, can’t I?”

“No you can’t, my lady,” the slaver’s hoarse reply came. “I myself ensure all slaves are only obtainable in auction, every bidder deserve equal fair chance at auction.”

“So virtuous of you, even it’s for something as atrocious as slave trading.”

Even with only dim lighting, the murky expression of the slave merchant wasn’t unnoticed by her.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, Ichabod.”

She watched the prospective buyer left. The steps of those boots-lined feet were uncannily light, making the pale noblewoman like a white ghost gliding amongst downtrodden slaves in this grim hall.

“Even your silver eyes are beautiful enough to seduce the Little White Lion, eh?” He chuckled and stroked her cheek with a leery smile. ”Fetch me some nice glittering coins tomorrow.”

 

xxxxx

 

Whenever anyone hear the word ‘Atlas’, what would come in their mind would be a land of harsh snow and savage cold winds—Even in summer, the cold was a stubborn overlord.

Yet here, in the southern borders, the sun was as merciless as the frost. The air was hot and humid, with icky coolness lingered from prematurely melted snow.

The frosty air gnawed her bare skin, the sun’s glare splotched disgusting patches of warmth and pairs of scrutinizing eyes feasted upon her naked body. She wasn’t a stranger to the auction stage, but at least in her past experiences rags preserved last pieces of her dignity. Yet, for this certain auction, all slave on sale were bared to the skin, as the slaver Ichabod’s promised not to hide any physical deformities of his showcased slaves.

An honest merchant practicing fair trading…in the despicable slave trading business.

She tried to ignore hungry lustful stares among the buyers. And by doing so, she found the cold, calculating eyes of a certain white-haired noblewoman.

_So she really wants to have me._

“The bid starts at three hundred silvers!” roared Ichabod, announcing the start of the bidding race with a grope on her butt.

“Three hundred and thirty-three!”

“Three hundred and fifty!”

“Four hundred and twenty-five!”

The silver coin stacks offered for the silver-eyed slave inflated madly. The latest bid was eight hundred and seventy-five silvers, coming from a thirty something woman, probably looking for fresh addition to her band of courtesans. At this point, most would think she was an overpriced slave, cutting the competition to only wealthiest patrons with hefty sum of money to waste.

She cared less of who would buy her, but she was tired of being bought as a prostitute. For her, breaking her backbone and died starving in a wheat field was better than servicing a long line of horny customers and sleep with soreness and seminal fluids all over her body.

“Three gold coins!”

“Gold coins for a single slave?” squawked someone from the crowd. ”What a waste!”

She looked the man bidding with gold and barely able to contain her gasp. An obese man dressed in gaudy expensive clothing and uneven blotches of stubble on his sweaty face, visually feasting on her paraded breasts and womanhood from far. He had been eyeing here the hungriest among the patrons, so hungrily that her entire body shivered. Either he was a sexual deviant, or a brothel owner—or heaven forbids, both.

Anyone. Anyone but that fat pervert monster.

Why that white-haired female knight stayed mum? Wasn’t she so adamant to have her the night before?

“Five golds.”

Finally, the knight stated her price.

A wave of ‘oohs’ and ‘whoahs’ rippled among the bidders, with the fat patron harrumphed arrogantly. They knew this auction suddenly became a duel of wealth, with a silver-eyed beauty as the contested prize.

“Seven golds!”

“Fifteen golds.”

“Twenty-five golds!”

Twenty-five gold coins could buy you a stable of thoroughbred horses, a farm of fat cattle, and many more. A preposterous amount of money one would spent for a single slave, no matter how exotic she was. No one would sacrifice their precious gold to win her from him—or her murky fate in the hands of that sleazy fat bulk of a perverted man.

_This is the dead end. I’m going to be a fucktoy for that rich pig._

“One”

The knight did and spoke nothing.

“Two”

She tried not to cry, but the image of her being abused and soiled every night by that monster was just too strong.

“Three—“

“Thirty golds and five Valean Strider mares.”

All ears and eyes were turned to the white knight and her fantastic price that made people gasped with their slackened jaws.

“I know you have interesting ‘fascination’ towards mares, Ichabod.” She strutted to the front, approaching the stage with thinly veiled smile of triumph.  “And Valean Strider horses are luxury up here in Atlas, no? Last time I checked, it’s three hundred silvers each.”

The slaver gulped with a small frown. “Thirty gold coins and five Valean Strider mares for this silver-eyed girl! Raise your hand if you have higher bids!”

No hands were daring enough to shoot up and challenge the white knight’s extravagant bid. The fat man in gaudy gold garb growled, his stubby fingers clenched into a meaty pair of fists but never raised.

 _Please,_ the silver-eyed slave prayed in the verge of her tears, _just let this fucking ends already._

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three!”

The knight flashed a smug smirk.

“Sold to Lady Weiss Schnee!”

The mention of the name gave the crowd of bidders a shock. That name was supposed to be sung among soldiers of northern Atlesian frontier, not being announced amongst patrons of a slave auction.

The slave was handled roughly by the dreamy-eyed slaver before getting unshackled and given to her new mistress. Thanks to weeks of malnutrition, her muscles lacked energy that she would’ve stumbled down and stuffed her face with dirt, if not for glove-lined hands of the noblewoman that held her shoulders. She felt thick, soft material of the noblewoman’s white cloak draped over her shoulder, covering her modesty from the world and its further humiliation.

Under the sun, she finally got the clear and close look of the pale face and ice-like eyes of her new mistress, Lady Weiss Schnee.

“Get her cleaned well and dressed properly,” Weiss told her valet.

“But m’lady, we have nothing to dress her with!”

“Can you think a reason why I bring some unnecessary extra sets of clothes along?”

Next thing she knew, she was ushered to one of the fancy lodgings, scrubbed from head to toe and dressed up in Lady Weiss Schnee’s spare attire.

Few hours ago she stood naked without any dignity in a damned stage, now she was dressed like a noble inside a lush carriage. This ensemble of clothes was far from the scratchy rags she used to wear; the linen was soft against her skin, surprisingly not as fancy and decorated as she expected from wealthy aristocrats—probably depicting the Schnee noble’s pragmatism over aesthetics.

Opposite her was Weiss Schnee, emotionlessly looking back at her and the glare of contempt she was putting on.

“That glare of yours isn’t necessary. It’s not like I’m interested in raping you or any other indecency.”

As if she would buy those words. Indeed, the noblewoman didn’t look at her like a beast looking at fresh slab of meat, but worse things might hide behind those indifferent blue eyes. This white knight-lady-whatever might have just saved her life from a pervert fat bastard, but it didn’t guarantee this pale woman isn’t another predator.

Who knows, this woman bought her to—

“Marry me.”

“What?” Her silver eyes blinked. Did she hear it right?

“I ask you to marry me, or are you too dolt to understand two simple words?”

“Why the hell a noble, and a woman nonetheless, wants to marry a slave?”

“I can declare you a free woman before I take your hand in marriage, if you’re really that concerned.”

“No, that’s not what I mean!” she shook her head and gritted her teeth. “You must have something up your sleeve!”

She didn’t give a damn if the way she rudely pointed her finger roused her mistress’ anger. The way Weiss looked at her with such unwavering cool calmness made her blood seethed, as if she looked down on her and make this whole predicament as a jest. She’d had enough of mockery and cruel games life pulled on her, she didn’t this lady to nonchalantly added one to the pile.

“Indeed I am,” Weiss answered calmly. “Pray and tell, what do you wish to fulfill?”

 “I want to seek for my sister and…and… “ she stuttered in the end, her silver eyes dulled for a moment. She grunted and glared at the noblewoman. “For now, it’s only that. What’s that with you, anyway?”

“Ponder about it, by being a noble’s spouse you can gain more help and resources to seek your sister, as well as protection coming from my authority. If any, it should’ve been you begging on your knees for me to take you as a wife, not just bring you home as a slave or an exotic bedwarmer.”

“What’s the catch? Of me being your wife?”

“I may or may not in need of your silver eyes, for my own personal quest from my late grandfather.”

She should’ve known earlier. If this ice of a woman knight didn’t desire her body, she was after her silver eyes.

Again, her silver _damned_ eyes.

“Can I say ‘no’, to your… proposal?”

The muscles of Weiss’ unmoving face scrunched slightly.

“Sure you can, I’ll declare you a free woman still. However…” There was an eerie pause, followed by the darkening of her blue eyes. “Don’t expect I’ll sought your assistance without force. I won’t hesitate to resort in violence to have your silver eyes for my need. At least, by being my wife, you will have more leniency as well as benefits of being married to a noble.”

There was no room to parley, it was so obvious.  

“Fine. I accept your proposal.”

What followed her answer was a haughty upward curl on Weiss’ face. She wanted to beat the hell out of that smug face, but what the odds a famished slave had against a sword-armed knight?

“Before everything, you should know I hate the idea of referring my wife as ‘silver-eyed slave’. So tell me your name.”

“Ruby Rose, if you’re really that concerned, Lady Weiss Schnee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first half of the first chapter of a stalled plot. It's not my favorite, considering there's too much plot holes, inconsistencies and weak storyline and I haven't written much of this, but it's still interesting to share how far I've got for this nonetheless.
> 
> Comments, suggestions and any kind of feedback is welcomed as always.


	3. Silent, Watery Serenade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Patch is a lively lakeside town surrounded by woods, the hometown of Ruby which she never visited for years until this summer break. There’s nothing strange or out of ordnance there, maybe excluding Weiss, the silent outcast who watches the forest and works odd jobs for townspeople. Summer days roll and Ruby finds herself more and more tangled with unexplained circumstances that revolve around her—and Weiss.
> 
> A fragment of my attempt at suspense-ish piece, sets in vague normal world AU. 
> 
> Warning: Slightly graphic lewd scene

Ruby stared in awe.

Unkempt, off-center but gorgeous white ponytail swished lazily in accordance of the summer’s breeze. Feminine face line framed a look of cool solitude and a single gash of scar, housing a pair of eyes of frozen blue that melted her eyes into pool of quicksilver that rippled with lustful anticipation.

A pull on her waist and she found her lips in a dance of a kiss. She hoped to taste the trace of meal, lipbalm or anything the pale woman had, but what came back to her taste buds was the sweet-sour aftertaste of milk and a dash of chocolatey sweet—the reminiscent of unhealthy breakfast she just had.

A tasteless kiss like a ghost, gliding across her lips, jaw, rolling down to the slope of her neck.

She was quiet but studiously kissing every subtle curves of Ruby’s neck. Something other than just a craving for physical intimacy, perhaps a lustful devotion. Moist cracked lips glided against her skin just felt otherworldly velvety, rousing low rumbles of moans from the base of her throat. Satisfied with the descent, the kiss hiked up again and went home to Ruby’s waiting lips.

Her fingers grasped tightly on the lapels of checkered blue flannel shirt, happily drunk in the tongue that slithers into her warmth. Her moans were drowned into their throat as they swam deeper to their welling carnal need. Deft hands that shirked off her unzipped hoodie wandered both above and below her tank top. A set of pale slim fingers pried open the defense of her jeans and slipped deep and beyond.

Her breath hitched and quickly evolved into strings of moans.  

The soft gurgles of water walked hand in hand with her moans. They made love by the lake’s side, and how the lake loved their intimate show of affection.

Deep pumps, fast zips, slow rakes. All were given to satisfy her needy walls, her silent snow-haired lover breathed soundless chant of subtle tantric worship all over her skin.  

The waters somewhere rolled deep, ghostly tendrils writhed and reached as Ruby felt the pleasure clawed up her flesh. Grappling upon her, cool, slippery, hot, bewitching. Climb, climb, climb, higher and higher to the peak of flesh pleasure—

Then Ruby found her breathless self being supported by a pine’s trunk, its rough bark pressed against her clothed back.

Had she just been having erotic daydream, right in open woodland wilderness?

She didn’t keep the tally, but this was hardly the first time her consciousness fell spontaneously to the erotic fantasy of Weiss.

It shouldn’t have been that big of a concern for her; the age of twenty was the onset of young women’s turbulent tide of libido, and the snow-haired female was nothing short of attractive attributes. That, or she indeed inherited her late mother’s blasphemous sex drive.

It didn’t matter whether she enjoyed it, nor the reason behind it. No sane person would have subconscious sexual seizure in a forest with a hunting rifle on her hands.

There was a loud rustle behind the bush and Ruby jumped, aiming her rifle at the incoming beast—

“Ruby?”

The white-haired woman came from the depth of the forest. In her hands were two large bear traps, already disabled but lost nothing of their vicious looks.

Ruby put her rifle down and smiled an apologetic look.

Why were they here again? Ah, yes, Ruby felt like going for a hunt and Weiss was with her as a guide for her safety since Sheriff Ironwood put on the notice of hazardous traps lying around the woods, and no one knew every nook and cranny of the forest as well as Weiss.

Flannel shirt with tartan blue pattern, dirty white undershirt and shoddy dark denim; a mundane if not tacky choice of clothes not worth for attention, but the one wearing them was the object of her lewd trances and those brought back vivid images of her latest sensual musing.   

What a mess of indecency her mind was.

“I lost in my own thought for a while. Sorry to make you worried, Weiss,” Ruby piped with a squeamish grin.

The snow-haired shrugged and put the bear traps into the burlap sack she brought.

The bear traps. So huge and vicious—Ruby could felt her flesh and bone easily grinded into pulp only by the sight of the sharp edges of the traps’ teeth. Only divines who could save her life once she was bitten by the metal contraptions.

And the thought of tens of them still lying among undergrowth below, waiting for anyone—for _her_ —to gullibly step into their jaws flushed the entirety of her hunter’s courage out of her system.

“I-I think I’ve had enough. Let’s go back.”

“Enough?” Weiss frowned. “You haven’t shot even a single bullet.”

“Yeah, but I guess I’ve lost the vibes already?”

It was a half-assed excuse, but that wasn’t a total lie. With the amount and ferocity of traps that lied around, coupled with her inept knowledge of the lay of the land, Ruby felt like the hunted instead of the hunter. She needed both her life and complete set of limbs to get her engineering degree, two things those bear traps would happily feed on.

Ruby waited for a response.

Weiss stared—or perhaps, _glared_ —at the lake, before mumbling “follow me.”

They trekked away from the lake back to Sherriff Ironwood’s cabin, which had been Weiss’ de facto den since long time ago. Ruby had long ignored the existence of her rifle, letting it hanging on her shoulder as both of her arms was busy clinging on Weiss. Holding onto Weiss’ arm shamelessly gave her more safety than her skills with hunting rifle might offer, with the hostile unseen eyes and teeth of the forest stalked beyond the bushes and foliage.

Ruby set her rifle down and rested herself on chair on the porch. She watched Weiss went back from the large shed slash taxidermy workshop, the sack was discarded and an axe occupied her hand.

There she was again, chopping firewood for her stockpile. Why would she need that much firewood for summer’s warm nights, or how those puny-looking lithe arms could slam an axe vicious enough for flawless wood chops—that had been Ruby’s topic of amusement as for late.

Weiss was perhaps the closest thing you got for a definition of woodsman in this modern era. The snow-haired woman spent majority of her time in the forest, living off of commissions of stuffing deer, wolves and other games’ hide with mannequin, or in more bizarre occasions, with the dried skulls and bones of the same animal. Her taxidermy craftsmanship was nothing to laugh at, proven by her peerless mounted beast that graced Mayor Ozpin’s office—the eerie red-eyed wolf, looking so full of life and ready to pounce on her.

Even with her deep admiration towards wolves, that particular white-furred _thing_ had too much fury wriggling on its dead red eyes that she dreaded entering the mayor’s office ever again.    

Ruby was once there, in the middle of pungent waft of chemicals twice foul than in any labs of her university, watching Weiss studiously sewing the seam of a stuffed wolf’s belly and mounted a stag’s head. Careful work of fingers and acrid reaction of chemicals fused flawlessly, forcing the beasts, or rather the remnants of them, to live yet another life unmoving and unliving.

She was glad she never had the luxury of watching Weiss skinning the hide right from an animal’s whole carcass. Not with that cold unwavering blue eyes.

Woodchopper’s strength that sculpted those arms and taxidermist’s precision stored on those fingers, the uncanny recipe that surely would make Ruby writhe and moan in bed—or wherever they were doing it.

The sound of axe chopped through the wood’s flesh stopped and Ruby found Weiss was staring at her.

And to think a mere stare could arouse Ruby this much—

“Something’s wrong, Weiss?”

When the blue of her irises met the silver ones, her already jaded eyes hardened. She let out a noise Ruby suspected as a growl before her arms lifted up the axe again.

“Stay away from the lake.”

Weiss’ last swing was particularly violent, as if she was chopping something not for the sake of firewood—but for a killing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something that popped when I play too much Bloodborne, reading some Lovecraft’s short stories, with some Wayward Pines influence here and there (?). I don’t know, really. Just thinking it’s cool to see Ruby still the Chosen One getting the spotlight, but in rather twisted lighting. And Weiss as the very opposite of wealthy spoiled brat she’s commonly written as (a.k.a poor lumberjack Weiss).
> 
> And yes, lumberjack Weiss! Can you even *pfffft* imagine it?


End file.
